Page 30 - Winter2017

Recovery from

Bioidentical Hormones

By Kim Schuette, CN

hen you think of hormonal symptoms, what

comes to mind? Anxiety, mood swings, fatigue,
Whot flashes and night sweats? Sleepless nights?

For many, the obvious remedy is often bioidentical hormone
replacement treatment (BHRT). This strategy assumes, of

course, that you have diminished levels of one or more
hormones. It is important initially for your practitioner to

determine whether the symptoms being expressed are the
result of deficiency or excess. Low or high levels of any

hormone create symptoms.

Let’s say that tests have determined that a hormonal imbalance exists and
that BHRT support may help. Sure enough, BHRT helps reduce or elimi-
nate the symptoms you were experiencing. So, at first thought, you may be
thinking “What’s to recover from? Aren’t bioidentical hormones natural?
That’s why I went this route in the first place.” Well, things are not always
as they seem. According to Louisa Williams, ND, DC, author of Radical
Medicine, “Many women using bioidenticals often find themselves in the
same predicament so common among women using ‘synthetic’ hormone
replacement therapy. That is, saturation of the tissues in estrogen and the
inevitable problems that excess synthetic estrogen produces. And why? Be-
cause bioidenticals are synthetic. They are basically the same as so-called
synthetic hormones and both are pharmaceutically derived.” 1

30 Wise Traditions WINTER 2017